


Nothing Like You

by Dude_With_Attitude



Series: Occupational Hazard [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Age Swap, Alternate Universe, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2018-10-09 23:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10424448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dude_With_Attitude/pseuds/Dude_With_Attitude
Summary: After Valka shoots down a Nightfury during a dragon raid, she finds that the dragon wasn't alone. A mysterious rider on top of the downed Nightfury leads her to believe that dragons aren't what they seem and its up to her figure out which side the rider is on.Meanwhile the events after the dragon raid has put Stoick in hot water with Astrid. Now Stoick has to find what it means to be a viking and the future Chief of Berk, even if it means going back and starting again at square one just to do it.





	1. Who I am

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I've seen many httyd fanfic's with an age reversal gimmick so, I thought "I" would be the one to do it... So, ta-dah..

“Dragons!” 

A boy, no more than 15 years old, blinked away his drowsiness as he was stirred awake in his bed, pausing for a second to see if he heard right and not another one of his dreams getting to him again. The shaking of his bed followed up by more screams made him fully realize the situation he was going to be in. 

The boy with messy red hair jumped out of bed and quickly went to his wardrobe to put on his armor for the impending battle that was going to happen.

_“This is berk quite possibly the toughest location north of Hopeless, a few degrees south of Freezing to death and a little ways off west of Weird. Berk is the place you want to be if you want to prove yourself as a warrior._  
My name is Stoick Haddock”

The last buckle of his shoulder pad locked into place, Stoick turned and grabbed his double sided ax with a sort of practiced fluidity, like he was expected to be attacked at night in his very own home. 

Stoick bounded down the stairs two steps at a time to open his front door and join in the fighting. As he swung the door open he was surprised to find that he was greeted first by a gaping mouth of a Monstrous Nightmare. Without thinking Stoick slammed the door before the Monstrous Nightmare could release his fiery wrath upon him. Instead the flame hit the wooden door, amazingly the door withstood the blast coupled with Stoick’s weight he successfully defended himself from the preemptive attack.

“Dragons…” Stoick mumbled to himself 

_“Berk has been around for about 7 generations and each generation had to fix houses that the dragons burned down after years of countless confrontations. It has always been that way, until Hiccup Haddock the Third took up the mantle as chief and introduced an ingenious way to counter even fire itself! Chief Haddock became famous after he successfully defended himself from a fire blast from a dragon with nothing more than a shield. Apparently he developed a recipe for oil, that when coated on any surface would become fire retardant. It became mandatory for everyone in the village to coat their homes in fire-retardant oil. Chief Haddock went down in history as the one who conquered fire.”_

After the Monstrous Nightmare finished its attack, it was now Stoick’s turn now to retaliate. He swung open the door and with an ear-piercing war cry Stoick embedded his axe onto the neck of the Monstrous Nightmare and followed though with his swing and didn’t stop until the dragon was decapitated pile of viscera at his feet. 

Stoick rushed to make his way to the village plaza where all the other warriors his age were. All the while he was greeted with “What are you doing here?” and a “Get back inside!” But he ignored them all and continued his way down to the center of the village where he was needed. 

It wasn’t until he was grabbed violently by the collar that he finally stopped in his tracks and turned around to see who had prevented him from going any further. But it was the face of the Chieftess of Berk who stopped him. 

If Stoick was horrified he didn’t let it show, like his namesake, he kept a stern pokerface on, opting to stay silent or face her wrath and now would be the worst time to argue with her. 

“Stoick! What are you doing out? Astrid said with exasperation in her voice as she impatiently waited for an answer from him. 

“I was jus-” ,but that was as far as Stoick could say because his Chieftess cut him off.

“Nevermind, just get inside!” Despite their proximity she nearly screamed the order at him and released him to carry out her order.

_“That was the fearless Astrid Hofferson Haddock, Chieftess of Berk and the wife of the late Chief Hiccup Haddock the fire conqueror. They say that when she was a baby the clouds parted and gave way to a magnificent ray of sunshine, a sign that the gods had favored her and she proved it, when she was old enough to wield an ax she threw it so hard that she fell a tree and the one behind it. Do I believe it? Yes I do.”_

“Fishlegs! What have we got?” Astrid shouted to a chubby looking man with a mop of dirty blonde hair. 

“uhh…Gronkles, Nadderheads, Zipplebacks and-” But, before Fishlegs could finish, a dragon crept in and fired off a blast that was too close for comfort. Fishleg’s ducked behind his shield to cover from the ambush, Astrid however didn’t flinch like Fishlegs did, intent on surveying the skies for anymore dragons.

“Oh, and I think the twins saw a Monstrous Nightmare” Fishleg’s said to finish off his report.

“What should we do Chief? Fishlegs asked when Astrid remained silent for too long.

Astrid looked to him and for a moment Fishlegs thought he could see a bit of blankness in them, but just as the look appeared on her face it was quickly wiped away and was replaced with bitter determination. 

“We need more support from the auxiliary team, tell Gustav to raise the torches and to ready the catapults, something tells me we’re going to need them.”

Fishlegs gave a single nod to his Chief and they both separated, Fishlegs to search for Gustav and Astrid to go where she was needed the most, which unfortunately for her is everywhere.

0o0o0o0o0o0oo  
Stoick finally arrived to the center of the village where he could see the other warriors fighting off dragons. 

One viking was retrieving his hammer after he had slung it at an unsuspecting dragon and was knocked unconscious, more than enough time to finish the downed dragon off. 

The same viking approached Stoick with a smile on his face, unfitting given the circumstances. 

“Oh! Nice of you to join the party, I thought you’ve been carried off!” he said to Stoick, his voice laced with a heavy accent.

Despite himself Stoick allowed himself to smile, “Who me? I wouldn’t miss this for the world!” Stoick branded his axe and took a swing at a Gronkle.

“I mean I would but those damned dragons can’t keep their paws off me. Just awhile ago as I was stepping out of my house one of them buggers attacked me! Killed it anyway, but it still gave me a heart attack!”

Gobber who was behind him gave a boisterous laugh “Spoken like a true viking, besides that’s what you get for killing a weyr of dragons, one of them is bound to get revenge on you in the end! ”

_“The meathead with attitude is Gobber we’ve been shield-brothers ever since we were little.”_

Out of no where a dragon comes bounding toward the duo its teeth bared possibly looking for its next victim. Stoick brought his shield up to meet the dragons charge, at the last moment he saw something move in the corner of his eye. A fierce looking Terrible Terror had already jumped up at him to bite off, presumably at his exposed jugular and all Stoick could do was watch.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Fishlegs ran as fast as his legs could carry him toward where Gustav was stationed at. A sign that read ‘Berks Auxiliary Outpost’ could be seen and a little ways past a small building. Fishlegs slammed open the door to find that Gustav was already up gathering his troops, which were all junior warriors still in training to become full-fledged vikings. 

Fishlegs wasted no time and walked up to the man in charge, “Gustav! The Chief wants to raise the torches and she also wants the catapults manned and ready to fire.”

Gustav nodded his head in acknowledgment “Right, Bucket, Mulch prime the catapult!”

Gustav then turned to a girl and a boy “Valka and Sven prep the torches and wait for my signal to deploy.” 

“This is not a drill! People’s lives are at stake, and every second you dally could mean the difference between life and death!” Gustav shouted.

Fishlegs noticed a brunette haired girl rolling a contraption toward the exit of the outpost, but before she could make away with it Gustav stood in front of her to stop her. 

“Valka! What are you doing? Leave the bola launcher here!” Gustav ordered.

Fishlegs watched in bewilderment as Gustav barked out orders seemingly unlike the demeanor Gustav gave off. The warriors-in-training obediently obeyed his orders without question, it could be the thought of dying or the thought of their loved ones dying that made them focus at the task at hand. Either way, the Chief should expect support from them soon or else they were going to lose this battle. 

O0o0o0o0o0o0 

At the last moment Gobber intercepted the attack and with a swing of his stone hammer he knocked away the Terror. 

“I’ve got your back Stoick!” Gobber stated proudly, but unbeknownst to him a deadly Nadderhead is creeping up on his blind spot. The Nadder gave a shrill screech, which signaled its attack and approached Gobber at ludicrous speeds. Gobber looked over his shoulder and out of instinct shut his eyes the second after the Nadder made its presence known and froze up from fear, acknowledging the fact that this is how he’ll die.

_*scree!* *thud!*_

Gobber opened his eyes wondering why he was still alive, has Odin blessed him with a second chance at life? He was met with the small back of his shield-sister Brynhild, “Nope, no gods here, just monsters and men” Gobber thought to himself.

“If you’ve got Stoick’s back whose got yours?” Brynhild said with a smirk.

Gobber smiled downward and shook his head “Obviously you would Brynhild, I’ve never doubted you for a second.”

“Brynhild was a bit on the small side when it came to the women of Berk, but she made up for it with hard work and like the youths of the tribe, her tenacity to prove herself has earned her praise not only from the village, but also from Chief Astrid.”

Stoick fought the off the dragon charging at him and finished it off quickly, just in time for him to see the torches in the village shoot up from the ground to illuminate the skies. 

_“It was no surprise after contending with dragons, that Berk’s engineering was quite ahead of its time as compared to the rest of the world. Berk had inventions and machines that no one has ever heard of before and it was all thanks to the late Chief Haddock for coming up with such fantastic contraptions. Hiccup Haddock wasn’t known for his physical prowess, in fact pictures of him on the wall of Chiefs depicted him as something of a walking fishbone or something akin to that. No, Chief Haddock was known for his brilliant mind, something no one has had in years. His tactics in battle were unorthodox and it baffled the enemy when they confronted Chief Haddock. During his reign, Hiccup Haddock the Third never lost a battle and had successfully defended Berk by outsmarting and outmaneuvering the enemy rather than brute force._

Now that Stoick could see his surroundings better he surveyed his environment, Gobber, Bryhild and himself have turned their backs to each other to minimize the chance of a surprise attack. He could also see some of the other junior warriors fighting a few yards away. 

Spitelout and his two brothers Hedgelout and Griplout Jorgenson could be seen fighting off Nadderheads and Gronkles almost on the verge of being overwhelmed.

However, Buffnut Thorston and Helga Ingerman seemed to be holding their own against a Gronkle. 

In the distance Stoick could see the Chieftess next to a catapult ordering its handlers where to point the catapult at. 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o  
“ Gustav! Concentrate your fire over on the lower bank!” Astrid barked out. 

“Yes ma’am!” Gustav turned to two blonde boys, one taller than the other with a bucket over his head. “Bucket, Mulch! Get to it!

The two boys went to either side of the catapult to turn the contraption toward the right side of the village. 

“Valka! Fire at will!” Gustav yelled at a small girl and despite her size, faithfully carried out the order, pulling back a lever, which tuned numerous gears and cogs . 

The boulder that was loaded into the catapult sailed into the sky and collided with a deadly Nadder knocking it down from the sky where it could be finished off from below.

Gustav and his band of junior warriors celebrated with a holler and fist pumps after they had hit its target. 

Astrid knew better and was right, a shadow that the torchlight didn’t reach caught her eye. She scanned the area to find the source of the movement, but didn’t have to look far because an unknown light source came from the bottom from where the catapult was perched up. 

A Monstrous Nightmare had unsurprisingly lit itself on fire, a nasty habit, Astrid knew that the only reason the Nightmare had done so was because of two reasons, one: it ran out of juice and used its last shot to light itself on fire and two: It has met a strong opponent and had to give it, it’s all if it wanted to win. Astrid liked to think that it was always the latter, it gave her confidence knowing a dragon strong as a Monstrous Nightmare would fear her. 

The celebration from the auxiliary team ceased and was replaced with wide-eyed silent horror. 

“Reload! I’ll take care of this” Astrid said to them darkly and without much warning started to swing her ax to defend the catapult.  
0o0o0o0o0oo0o

Another dragon was slain by the hands of Gobber and he was starting to tire out,  
it had been a couple minutes now and the dragon hoard didn’t look like it was slowing down, in fact they seem to be getting bigger, stronger and angrier. Gobber knew if they didn’t do something soon Berk will be overrun in a matter of hours. 

“Stoick this isn’t working we have to try something new”, Gobber said without looking at him. When Gobber was met with silence he turned around expecting to see his friend, he was surprised to find that Stoick was gone. Gobber could see him running off in the distance toward a Monstrous Nightmare that had lit itself on fire. 

“Stoick? Stoick?! What in Thor’s name are ye doing?!” Gobber yelled at him.

“I need to help Chief! She looks like she’s in trouble!” Stoick screamed back.

Upon closer inspection Gobber could see that Stoick was right, he could see a Monstrous Nightmare fighting the darkened silhouette of their fearless Chief. 

Gobber looked back to the shrinking figure of Stoick, he weighed out his options and concluded that as his shield-brother he has a responsibility to uphold, so he lifted his hammer and followed his best friend into the fray. 

Brynhild on the other hand had kept herself busy, besting a Zippleback by beheading the head that created gas. Without any gas to combust, the dragon can’t utilize its fire efficiently leaving it vulnerable to an attack. With a final swing the other head of the Zippleback lay at her feet. 

“HA HA, are we still keeping score Gobber? Because I just killed a Zippleback, which everyone knows counts as two points! Brynhild said triumphantly not minding the blood and viscera that was on her clothes and hair.

When Gobber didn’t reply she looked over her shoulder to find that both of her shield-brothers had abandoned her and instead are running off.

“Really, you guys?! She said with irritation laced in her voice, but she soon followed after them in favor of not being surrounded by dragons alone.

0o0o00o0o0o0o0o  
The Dragons numbers haven’t dwindled, not in the slightest Stoick knew for a fact as he slayed his fifth dragon tonight. Stoick was so caught up on aiding the Chief that he failed to notice his shield-brother and sister behind him struggling to catch up with him. 

00o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0  
Astrid’s head was usually in the game, but something about tonight made her mind wander off to the night sky watching out for any sign of future danger that wasn’t there, instead of being in the here and now, fighting off a very real dragon from Helheim. Wanting to recollect herself, Astrid knocked back the Monstrous Nightmare with the side of her ax. She had successfully lured the Nightmare away from the catapult and was waiting for the dragon to lose steam, but as the Dragon approached Astrid to counter attack a soul shattering battle cry interrupted their concentration.

Stoick gave away his position at an attempt to take some of the heat off of Astrid, but it was a stupid move, Stoick knew himself well enough that he couldn’t take on a Monstrous Nightmare, not in his exhausted state and to add insult to injury the damn reptile had lit itself on fire. Stoick remembered when he tried to take on a Monstrous Nightmare that had engulfed itself in fire, first and second degree burns littered his arms and torso, incapacitating him for months. He couldn’t lift his weapon and that made him feel absolutely useless. That was the first time that Stoic felt fear, the same fear that had settled in his gut made him hesitate at the worst of times, now was one of those times. 

_“Stoick!”_

Stoick didn’t know how long he was gone for, lost in his own thoughts, but the sound of Gobber’s voice behind him was enough to know that he spaced out and Gobber was going to pay for Stoick’s mistake. 

The Monstrous Nightmare knocked Stoick to the ground hard after it lost interest in him and turned its attention to the Blond man screaming and flailing his arms wildly at him like a chicken gone mad. 

Gobber didn’t know what else to do, he knew that the moment when Stoick stopped his battle cry he had frozen up, a symptom of PTSD. Gobber has seen it happen before when he worked as a healers assistant with Gothi. Stoick should’ve known better than to charge in, but then again he’s done the same thing as well. 

Gobber lifted his weapon to strike the fiery demon, but as his arm came down fast and hard so did the dragon’s mouth and with a single twist Gobber’s arm and beloved hammer was gone. 

Astrid saw all of this in slow motion, knowing that her mind was fast enough to stop all of this from happening, but her body was to slow to follow, too stunned to react. It was like Loki was teasing her, she could almost hear the sound of her ancestors laughing at her and of her late husband whispering to her: “You’re not fit to follow in my footsteps.”  
But before Astrid could react she heard the telltale sound of a Nightfury coming down and preparing to attack. 

“Nightfury! Get down!” Astrid could hear one of the vikings yell out. Instincts took over and she raised her shield to protect herself from any of the Nightfury’s attack. Fortunately, none of them were a target, but Astrid wished it were aimed at her because the attack found its way to the catapult that Gustav was last seen.

O0o0o0o0o0o0o  
The Plasma bolt from the Nightfury’s attack incinerated the catapult with one blast, making the contraption fall apart at the seams.

“Jump!” Gustav yelled at Valka and the others, they all followed him knowing that there was a vast ocean beneath them to break their fall. However, Valka stayed behind, knowing that the Nightfury is going to continue its attack. She deployed the mobile bola launcher that she had stowed away when Captain Gustav wasn’t looking and she aimed her sights at the dark moonless sky waiting for the spawn of lightening and death itself.

“C’mon, give me something to shoot at” Valka repeated the phrase like a Mantra.

The gods must’ve loved her tonight because her prayer had been answered, the shadowy figure of a dragon could be seen blocking the stars a second and then vanishing, appearing once again and then vanishing once more. This went on for a couple seconds until her impulsiveness and patience wore out and Valka squeezed the trigger releasing the bola into the sky. The recoil sucker-punched her in the gut knocking the wind out of her and finally falling unintentionally into the sea below to rejoin her squad, but at the last moment before she fell into the water, she could’ve sworn that she heard the sound of a dragon give a hauntingly horrified screech. 

0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o  
Stoick woke up with a growing headache and he fought the urge to vomit as he looked up to take in his surroundings. He could see Astrid had contiued fighting the Monstrous Nightmare with more vigor than before in the village below next to two figures that he recognized as Bryhild and Gobber, but the latter of the two had his eyes closed. Stoick didn’t have time to think what that could mean, didn’t want to think about it now. 

Stoick could see that while Astrid was keeping up with the Monstrous Nightmare she was tiring out fast. 

Stoick looked around to see if he could somehow help her at this distance, going down there would take too long and by the time he gets there it might already be too late. 

His eyes finally landed on the ridiculously large torch that had been deployed and was struck with a reckless idea, it was going to be messy to clean up, but at the moment what choice did he have? When no alternatives presented itself Stoick took his axe and started to work his way to the center of the pillar that held the large torch. It took some time, but when he finally managed to get it to fall, the torch dislodge itself separating Astrid from the Monstrous Nightmare. The Torch rolled down to the village and it continued to roll until it rolled past Sven’s sheep pen. 

Stoick looked to the way the Torch rolled down assessing the damages that he’s done, flinching every time the torch rolled past an unsuspecting viking. 

At this point the the fight between the dragons and the vikings had ceased. The vikings going to the where Stoick was to see what he’s done now. 

Stoick could feel an unbelievably heavy pressure that was emanating from behind him. He took a slow breath in and turned around to meet the gaze of the Chief. 

“Hi Mom.” Stoick mumbled, he knew that he should’ve called her Chief, but he would do anything at that moment to alleviate some of the tension hanging in the air.

When Astrid didn’t answer back unimpressed, Stoick knew that she was pissed, not at the intentional slip of the use of “mom,” but at what Stoick had done. 

“Okay, but at least my distraction worked” Stoick said in his defense, but before he could say anymore, he was violently pulled by the arm and was walking toward their house making him yelp in surprise. 

“Its not like the first few times mom, my plan actually worked this time,” Stoick continued on, but was met with yet again more silence. 

“If you would listen to me from time to time I actually have some pretty good ideas and-” That set Astrid off, fed up with Stoicks rambling. 

“Stop! Stoick, just stop.” Astrid said, exhaustion and irritation in her voice and as she said those words she released her grasp that she had on Stoick. 

“Every time you think up of your plans disaster always seems to follow you.” Astrid said matter of factly.

“Can’t you see that I have bigger problems? Winter is almost upon us and I have an entire village to feed. I asked you to do one thing Stoick, why can’t you follow the simplest of my orders?” Astrid continued.

“I can’t stop myself, every time that I see a dragon I have to just kill it you know?” Stoick said as he pretended to strangle and snap the neck of an invisible dragon that wasn’t there to prove a point. “It’s who I am, mom.” Stoick finished.

Astrid ran her hand over her eyes whispering a silent prayer to Odin to give her wisdom, patience, and forgiveness for what she was about to say next. 

“Look around you Stoick,” Astrid Gestures with her free hand, Stoick looked to the direction that his Chief was pointing at, which was…everywhere. The damages he caused where extensive, from the library where it held Hiccup’s compendium of dragon knowledge, all the way to the outskirts of town. He felt sorry for the poor soul that was going to get that fixed. 

“You are no doubt the best viking this village has seen, but I wish that you would use your head a little and I don’t just mean your convoluted plan that you’ve concocted. What I mean is to really think of the bigger picture other than your own interest.” Astrid said. 

“But, I did! You were in trouble and I distracted it to get the dragons attention, I thought you would be grateful for my help.” Stoick returned angrily. 

“And a lot of good that did,” Astrid said as she pointed to Gobber that was being cradled by a haggard looking Brynhild. Her eyes were red and puffy, obviously from the crying that she did, fearing for the worst that Gobber died from blood loss if he didn’t get the medical attention required. 

“Your help,” Astrid took several steps toward Stoick until she was standing in front of him, “costed one of our own to be maimed and handicapped (pun not intended), furthermore this could all have been avoided if you just listened to what I ordered you to do, To. Stay. Inside!” Astrid pushed her index finger onto Stoick’s chest to punctuate her words.

Stoick was speechless, he knew that she was right, the distraction although was successful, the payoff costed them a whole lot more than what the dragons lost and they still got away with the majority of their fish and sheep, worst of all he put his best friends life at risk.

Astrid thought it was time deal out a punishment to Stoick when he didn’t have anything to say in his defense. 

“Stoick, I hereby relegate you to Auxiliary fourth class, you are to report to Gustav Larson in the morning. Err..rather in 8 hours” Astrid finished with her addendum when she looked to the sky to find that they had spent the entire night fighting off their reptilian adversaries. 

“Wha-?! Mom, that’s not fair! I earned my right to be here I’ve got the scars to prove it” Stoick said and he was thinking up of more things to say to persuade the Chief to take back her words.

“Did I stutter? You are to report to Captain Larson to be debriefed on your new accommodations and that’s final. Astrid said this time with more conviction.

Astrid had her Chief voice on, Stoick knew that anything he said would be disregarded. He dropped his head defeated and ashamed. 

Astrid turned to face her friend, “Ruffnut, take Stoick home and make sure he gets there, I’ve his mess to clean up.” Astrid said the last part laced with poison. 

Ruffnut would usually pass on the task to her twin brother, but something told her to do as she was told, lest she wanted to be subjected to the Chiefs anger. With one smack to Stoick’s head they were off.


	2. Never Doing That Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stoick tries to fix his mistakes. Valka attempts to kill a Nightfury and Astrid tries to be a good Chieftess. Spoiler Alert! It doesn't go all too well for any of them. Also a little bit of back story to the Haddock residents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, what was supposed to be an afternoon of proofreading turned into weeks. It may not be as perfect as I'd like, but I don't like to keep you guys waiting.

Stoick and Ruffnut walked to the Chiefs house on top of the hill in silence, when they were far enough away from the chief, Stoick decided that he was far away enough to speak his mind.

“ I was really trying to help you know, she just never listens.” Stoick told to a disinterested Ruffnut. 

“Well, it runs in the family, kid” 

Stoick looked at her debating whether or not he should be flattered or offended at her half hearted remark, unable to come up with a conclusion he gave up with an audible huff.

“Well, if she stopped treating me like a kid and listened to me more, we wouldn’t be having this problem.” 

“Its because you are a kid, kid. Astrid just wants you to enjoy being one and not a viking with responsibilities yet, that part comes later. And besides, I think you’re going about this the wrong way. Its not really what you did that pissed her off, its more of what’s inside of you that pissed her off the most. Ruffnut said hoping it was the thing Stoick wanted to hear from her.”

And it was true, Astrid saw the bad qualities that she had when she was his age and it irked her and the entire village to know that Stoick had inherited his mother’s personality and his father’s infamous Haddock stubbornness. Two of those combined was a recipe for disaster, and if left unchecked, would make Stoick was an unstoppable force.

Astrid wanted Stoick to be better than her, learn from her mistakes and become a better Chief than his predecessors, to see him go down the same path as Astrid, worried her.

Stoick looked at his companion like she grown a second head. They had arrived at their destination and Ruffnut hadn’t shared anything profound or life changing in the span of their walk to his house. In fact, what she said to him had stung a bit. 

“I just want to be one of you guys.” Disappointed, Stoick entered his home, exhausted both mentally and physically. It had been a long and stressful night for the village, but nothing 8 hours of sleep won’t fix.  
0o0o0o0o0o0o0

“We’ll leave it to the reserve unit to finish up with the repairs on the damaged buildings.” Astrid instructed to Fishlegs.

It had been a couple of minutes after the raid and everyone was tense and tired, ready to call it a day.However, they still had a duty to uphold, so they pushed through through their tired eyes and carried on working. Astrid had instructed the Berkians to gather in Berk’s council room to designate who would repair the damages that had been done and who would build outer defenses in case another raid occurred, but it was currently evolving into something else entirely.

The sound of a knife being stabbed through wood caught Astrid’s attention and she had trained her ears to listen to where the sound emanated from. She had pinpointed the sound, which had come from the biggest mob in the center of the room. 

“Either we finish them or they’ll finish us, its the only way that we’ll be rid of them, if we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will leave and find another home!” Snotlout said with support from Tuffnut.

Snotlout had amassed the attention of most of the vikings in the room and was preaching his ideas on what they should do next to retaliate. 

The vikings, the younger ones especially, were stricken with fear. Never having to face a dragon before not in their lifetimes were easily manipulated in doing what would be best for them. 

It was sound logic Astrid admitted, but something didn’t feel right, nothing of what last night did, it was the first few times in years that they had been raided by dragons on such a large scale. The last major raid was during the time of Hiccup’s reign, but that was more than 20 years ago.

Astrid shook her head at the thought, “Now is not the time to be dwelling on the past.” She had to get things back in order, she was the Chieftess after all.

However, Astrid was still having trouble persuading the vikings to listen to her, they had lost faith after last night. She really needed to prove to herself that she can take on the role of Chieftess, even after the fiasco that her son created.

“No ship has ever come back,” all eyes turned to Astrid, effectively silencing the cacophony of voices in the council room. Even Snotlout stopped his speech to listen to what Astrid had to say. 

Astrid walked over to where Snotlout and Tuffnut were at the center of the room.

“From what I gathered, when we tried years ago, we didn’t even come close to seeing this dragon nest, it could even be false information. We should instead regroup and collect ourselves, we haven’t been raided for years, we should take this time and fortify our defenses in case another attack comes.” Astrid saw a few vikings nod their heads in agreement.

“Another attack will come I can promise you that, I say we attack the dragons first before they even have a chance to know what hit them and maybe if we’re fast enough we can take back what they took from us! Now whose with me!?” Snotlout said weapon raised to prove that he was willing to shed blood.

The crowd roared and cheered his name, raising their fists to let him know that they were with him.

Proud of what he had just done he couldn’t help himself and riled the crowd further, it wasn’t everyday that the villagers had listened to Snotlout. It was a rare occurrence, but it did happen from time to time.

“Snotlout! Snotlout! Oi! Oi! Oi”

As expected the Berkians picked up on it and followed in with the chanting as well as using their fists to drum on the dinning tables. 

Anger quickly rising, Astrid had just about heard enough of Snotlout’s speech. She knew that if she didn’t quell the rioting, it won’t stop, not until they get what they wanted. 

“QUIEETT!!!” Astrid screamed, her hand slammed down in tandem to her outburst for added effect.

It was silent once again, all eyes trained on her for the second time for the verdict. Astrid knew that she could veto the decision to go after the dragons nest, but she knew that wouldn’t make the vikings who sided with Snotlout happy, no, there would be civil unrest and she couldn’t afford a domestic dispute, not at such a crucial time. 

“Anyone that is willing to go with Snotlout to find the dragons nest can go, those who will stay will have to help me fortify Berk’s defenses.” Astrid said. With this Snotlout’s group should be satisfied and she would get what she wanted as well, it was a win-win decision, something to be proud of. 

“If there is nothing else that is needed to be discussed, this meeting is adjourned.” Astrid said in conclusion.

Every viking went their separate ways, some going home to get a good nights sleep after the battle a few hours ago. Others getting ready for the task for today.

“Except for you four.” Astrid gestured to Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Snotlout, who they all froze in place, wondering what other business she had with them. 

Snotlout smirked and cockily strode to Astrid.

“Hey Astrid, sorry for taking the spotlight from you, but my idea was too good not to pass up, no hard feelings right?” Astrid said nothing, but did allow herself to glare at him, which made Snotlout drop his smile and take a step back.

*sigh* “No, Snotlout, it was a pretty good idea, the logic behind it was sound and even I thought about it once or twice.” Astrid admitted to her closest friends.

“Really? Then why did you go against his proposal if you thought it was a solid idea?” Fishlegs said to Astrid.

“I don’t know,” Astrid said casting her head downward to the ground as if the answer was at her feet. “Something doesn’t feel right.” 

Seemingly not satisfied with Astrids answer Ruffnut supplied her an alternative to her ‘feeling.’ 

“Or maybe you’ve just about had it with good ideas.”

“What?” They all said, each wearing questioning looks silently asking what Ruffnut meant by it. 

“Ohh, do you mean what happened with Stoick?” Tuffnut was the one to get what his sister meant when the rest of the group didn’t. 

“Astrid, we all do stupid things from time to time Tuffnut continued. Don’t believe me? Me and my sister are living proof of it. Out of habit Ruffnut playful elbowed his brother making him cough in surprise, but not one to be done in, he returned the gesture back at her. They continued this until they were rolling on the floor fighting for dominance.

Astrid thought about what Ruffnut said, the added stress that Stoick created did put her on edge. It wasn’t the first time that Stoick did something like this she admitted, but what Ruffnut said, She could be on to something. 

“This time was different, this time it costed one of our own to be severely maimed and unable to fight. What am I going to do with him?” Astrid said sitting down exhaustion finally getting the better of her. “Ever since he could crawl Stoick has always been different.” 

“Always willing and ready to prove himself, Me and Hiccup took him out to go camping and you know what he does?” Astrid didn’t wait for her friends to give an answer, “He goes out and kills a troll!”

_“Prior to the camping trip, when Stoick was 4 years old, he had a habit of not falling asleep, in favor of staying awake all night and fighting imaginary demons and monsters. To quell him, Hiccup told him a bed time story, something that would appeal to Stoick sense of danger and adventure. It worked, but Hiccup didn’t know that it had also inspired Stoick’s sense of discovery as well.”_

_“It had been an exciting few days for the Haddock family, when Stoick told his parents that he wanted to go out camping in the woods. Hiccup made it his mission to take some time off from his duties to be with his family for some quality bonding. They hiked for a few miles, until they arrived at the clearing that was picked out by Astrid beforehand. After settling in for the night, Hiccup heard an inhuman screech that awoke him and Astrid up from their slumber. Not taking any chances Hiccup and Astrid went out of their tent armed and ready to face any threat to their family, but was stopped by an unimaginable sight. Stoick, Axe in hand, had slain what appeared to be a green skinned dwarf. It must’ve been a youngling, because if the legends were true, trolls were as tough, if not stronger than dragons. The Haddock family cut their vacation time short after that.”_

All four of them gasp at Astrid’s revelation, this time it was Snotlout who recovered first, “Wait, trolls exist?” 

Astrid stood up and couldn’t help the eye roll that escaped her, they were all missing the point. 

“When Stoick was old enough, Astrid tried again to get them to see the bigger picture, Hiccup took Stoick to see an old insurmountable rock that had been there since Hiccup was Stoick’s age. 

“Hiccup tasked him with an impossible request to get past the boulder, the lesson was to teach Stoick that there are some things that men even the strongest and ferocious vikings can’t accomplish with just killing things. Sometimes you’ve got to use your sharpest tool, your mind, to reach your goal. After several attempts to climb over the rock, Stoick was unable to find any purchase for his feet to climb up slid off the rock for the umpteenth time since they got there.

The rock, was flanked by a thick brush, so going around the rock was like asking to get pass the rock itself. 

Finally, Hiccup clued him in by saying to use his head, a metaphor that he should think outside of the box. Hiccup thought that Stoick would wise up and realize that the challenge was impossible, thus Hiccup would reveal the the lesson to him, but Stoick took the phrase literally and used his head to split the boulder into two pieces, so that Stoick could pass through the obstacle.”

The four of them listened to Astrid’s story surprised at what Stoick was and still capable of doing, even when he was a child.

“So that’s what happened to old rocky, I was meaning to ask about it but I never got around to doing it.” Tuffnut said. 

“Do you see what I’m getting at here?” Astrid asked them. “I thought that Stoick would grow up intelligent, quick-witted and charismatic like his father, but Stoick is not that boy.”

Astrid rejoined her friends at the table, hands buried in her face, waiting for them to respond. It was a rare occurrence, they all thought, seeing Astrid so, unbelievably human and lost on what to do. 

Since birth, they all knew Astrid as something of a perfectionist. She was determined to become the top viking, whatever the cost it may be. On most days, her aggressive attitude has always caused her to bump shoulders with her peers. It wasn’t until she met Hiccup, that she began to tone down her bad behavior and learned to use her words more often than her fists.

Hiccup and Astrid were polar opposites of each other, the former always willing to talk his way out of a situation rather than meeting the opposing side with force. It wasn't until a war broke out with Dagur the Deranged, the previous Chief of the Berserker tribe, that Astrid began to play diplomat to avoid needless fighting and bloodshed.

Hiccup also learned that no matter how good at public speaking you were, the dragons were no good at politics, favoring to burn, bite and claw everything that got in its way, over talking it out with him. It was one of those times when you had to attack now and ask questions later.

When Hiccup became Chief, she was named his general to fight along side him in battles that were to come, fully utilizing her skills as a warrior. Later Astrid would become Hiccup’s wife and mother to their child.

Years later when Hiccup went mad and turned against his own kind, she had averted a crisis by taking him down before his rebellion took place. With their Chief in custody, she had to make a decision to either kill him or spare him. Astrid wanted to spare their Chief, but the masses demanded Hiccup to be put to the axe for his betrayal. Unable to kill him herself, she chose to banish him from Berk, to let him live out the rest of his days in exile. 

After Astrid’s rant, her friends gave Astrid a moment of silence to collect herself. Until Fishlegs walked up to her distressed friend. 

“There’s nothing you can do about it Astrid that’s who Stoick is, you can’t change who he is. The only person who could do that is Stoick himself. All we can do is look out for him and prepare him.” Fishlegs said with an arm outstretch to touch her shoulder. 

“And if you think that you’re going to take this on your own, you’re dead wrong, I’ve got your back.” Ruffnut said embracing Astrid in a tight hug. 

“And if my sister says she’s in, you can bet that I’m in as well” Tuffnut said and without hesitation hugged Astrid as well.

Everyone looked to Snotlout, waiting for his answer if he was going to aid a friends call for support. 

“Come on guys, of course I’m going to support her, I thought you knew me better than that. Snotlout said as he approached the group, arms open to hug them all.

It was a heartfelt moment for Astrid, they had been friends since the beginning and eventually they all had to grow up and take on the responsibilities their parents passed on to them. Of course that meant that they had to be apart on most days, not hanging out, like they used to do when they were kids. For them to still have her back, despite her misgivings, it touched Astrid knowing she wasn’t alone.

It was interrupted all too soon though when suddenly the doors to the council room swung open to reveal Heather smiling at the four friends. 

“Heather!” They all said, breaking off the group hug and rushing to her side.

Fishlegs was the first one to Heather and he gave her a back-breaking bear hug to celebrate their reunion.

Recently a letter had reached Berk asking for Chief Astrid to attend a Chief meeting with the other Chiefs of neighboring tribes. Astrid was going to decline their offer yet again, but Heather had stopped Astrid this year. 

Heather had volunteered to go instead of Astrid because her eldest son, Oswald “the agreeable” Ingerman, had a seat in the council of Chiefs and she wanted to see him. Being apart from him for too long had sparked a desire to see him and Astrid obliged her request willingly.

“How was the meeting with the council? I hope they took to you better than they did to me.” Astrid said to Heather as she approached.

Heather broke the hug that her husband was giving her and looked to her Chieftess. She frowned at her and shook her head.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the council have requested to speak to you… Astrid you need to answer their summons.” 

“Can’t it wait? Astrid groaned back.

She had a ton of work to do, from overseeing the reconstruction of Berk’s buildings, to assisting with the defenses, Astrid also had to take stock of all of Berk’s resources, food supplies and how much they would be needing in the upcoming winter. Now she had the council of Chiefs hounding at her and her questionable position as Chieftess. 

Heather shook her head once more, “Afraid not, its of the utmost importance, something about you taking in a new husband after Hiccup.”

Astrid and the rest looked to Heather as she said this, she and the others where speechless and they all uttered in complete unison. “What?”

O0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o  
Valka had spent the start of her day at home drying her clothes and hair out after their surprise dip into the cold ocean last night. Valka knew what she saw, a dragon had tangled itself in her bola that she shot and she wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like this. It wasn’t everyday you catch a Nightfury and Valka was determined to pinpoint the location where the dragon had crash landed.

Of course the others didn’t believe her, she wouldn’t believe her either, if not for the fact that it actually happened. 

Unsurprisingly, She received a scolding from Captain Larson, about disobeying a direct order, not once, but twice. One, for bringing the bola launcher when he specifically told her not to bring the bola launcher and two, for not jumping off the platform when Gustav told her to jump off the Thors forsaken platform.

Yup, all in a days work for Valka, Gustav had issued her a rather lenient punishment though, a new recruit will be joining them today and it was Valka’s job to teach him the ropes. The ins and outs of what it means to be in the auxiliary support unit.

Valka sat near the fire that she had started up in her house to keep her warm and dry, daydreaming of what the new recruit would look like, if he/she would be nice to her and if he/she would be older or younger than she was. 

When she deemed herself dry enough and not feeling tired at all Valka threw together a clean set of clothes and sprinted out of her house almost forgetting to lock it behind her. 

She was on a mission, a mission to end the life of one of the worlds horrific dragon’s known to man…A Nightfury.  
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

That is.. if she could find it. It had been a good four hours since the start of her search for the legendary beast and her optimism was at an all time low.

Valka figured that she used up all of her points with the gods when she launched the bola and captured the Nightfury.

“The gods hate me” Valka moaned to herself. 

“This could’ve been the find of the century and I just lost it” Valka said. Like all the other children, she had the desperate desire to prove her worth to the tribe, proof that she can be as much help as any grown viking could be. Because here in Berk, killing a dragon is everything. 

Over thinking, as she was prone to doing, she released her anger by kicking a pebble at the edge of an unexpected drop.

Curious to where it fell to she inspected the cliff side, spotting a black form of a dragon. She quickly ducked behind the shrubbery that surrounded the place.

She poked her head out again slowly to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. Looking closer Valka noticed the bola still tangled in the wings of the dragon disabling it from flying and moving.

Valka took inhaled and exhaled slowly to slow down her rapidly beating heart. She approached the Nightfury, more nervous than she has ever been in her life.

From the looks of it the dragon had been killed on impact. Valka felt a sort of relief for not getting her hands dirty with dragons blood. Feeling braver and a lot safer now knowing that there was no threat on her life, she dropped her guard. 

“I-I did it…?” Valka said not believing herself at first.

“I did it…” Valka repeated the sentence again with more confidence.

“I actually downed a dragon! And not just any dragon, I just killed a Nightfury!” Valka said as she triumphantly placed her foot on top of the dragon’s corpse, like she’s seen in the portraits of men who have successfully hunted and killed their prey.

Her foot moved under the Nightfury and Valka jumped back surprised. 

“Idiot”

How could she have been stupid to think that the dragon had died on the spot. Dragons were built to survive tougher things than a human could, speaking of which what is that on the Nightfury’s backside, is that…a person?

Before Valka could take a closer look, she felt a pair of eyes on her and she looked around the forest to see where it came from. Her eyes finally landed to the dragons head where her forest-y green eyes met nuclear green ones.

Valka didn’t move or scream or even breath. She was too stunned to do anything, caught in the Nightfury’s sight. It’s eyes, Valka thought, reminded her of a cat, whose eyes have been slit whenever it felt like it was threatened. 

Valka broke eye contact first, patting herself down to locate her weapon that Gustav told her and her teammates to have with them at all times in case of an emergency.

She felt the indention of her knife against her boot and frantically knelt down to unsheathe the weapon.

“Okay dragon, h-here’s the deal, I-I’m going to k-kill you and then I’m going t-to cut out your h-heart to present it… t-to the…to the Chieftess. Valka said nervously.”Once thats done I’ll be the heroin of Berk a-and then…and then..” Valka stuttered.

She opened her eyes not knowing when she had shut them, to look at the Nightfury directly in the eye. Something unsettling stirred inside of her, whether she felt queasy from the thought of killing a live animal or from the thought of her becoming a murderer. Valka didn’t know, but she didn’t like it, slowly she dropped her hands to her sides.

“gods…What am I doing? Valka asked herself, “this isn’t me, why would I even go far as to do this?” 

Valka looked back to the Nightfury and then remembered the person on its back, her instinct as a nurse kicked in and began cutting away the rope to get to the person.

She hadn’t realized until it was too late the gravity of what she had just done, blinded by her willingness to help the person who may or may not have been injured in the fall. She had done the unthinkable, she had released a dragon and the dragon didn’t seem pleased to be plucked out of the sky.

The Nightfury acted fast on Valka and before she even realized it, she was pinned against a rock trapping her neck against the Nightfury’s paw. Struggling to free herself, she clawed at the reptiles paw at an attempt to get it to release her.

Valka could clearly see the eyes of the dragon, this was as close to a dragon that she has ever been before. She prayed to whatever gods she knew to save her and thankfully they did. 

After the dragon released its grip from her neck, Valka repeatedly gulped in air, like it was the most delicious thing she has ever tasted.

Valka was once again met with another pair of green eyes, this time it from the person on the Nightfury’s back. Judging by his form, Valka concluded that the person was male, although a bit more lithe and thinner than the average viking, but still definitely male.

The dragon shaped mask that the man was wearing covered his identity and prevented Valka from discerning any of his facial features, she also couldn’t tell what were the riders intentions are or if they were good or bad. 

The armor he wore was scratched, whether from the fall from last night or from fighting unknown enemies, Valka didn’t know, what she did know was that this man was unbelievably riding their sworn enemies. Not like a horse or a yak, where they use them as means to an end. No, it felt like they were two pieces of a whole. From their demeanor alone, Valka felt like they were equals. Thor is nothing without Mjollnir and vice versa. 

After what seemed like an eternity of staring each other down, the Nightfury finally made a move on Valka, towering over her and emitting an ear-splitting wail that echoed throughout the forest shocking Valka, momentarily shutting her eyes for the fire blast to kill her, but it didn’t come.

She opened her eyes to see at the last minute the man flying away on top of the Nightfury, over the grass past the trees, into the mist never to be seen again.

Valka released her breath she didn’t realize she had been holding and started to get up to walk back to the village, to reflect on today’s events. 

That was the plan, until she started to feel her legs begin to wobble from beneath her and her eyesight began to darken and fade around her.

“Oh crap, Oh crap, Oh crap, Oh crap, not now! Please don’t faint now! Valka pleaded to her body. The exhaustion from last night combined with what happened a few minutes ago finally caught up to her. 

Although there was a surge of adrenaline pumping through her veins a moment ago when she was pinned against the Nightfury, she was already coming down from it and it made her realize how tired she really was.

“I am never doing that again.” Valka thought to herself.

With an audible groan, Valka heeded her body’s request and collapsed on the earth below her, sound asleep .  
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

*Gasp*

Stoick sat straight up for the umpteenth time this hour, drenched in cold sweat, his mind kept replaying images in his head of Gobber sacrificing himself to save him.

Stoick curled his knees up so he could rest his head on top of them, if he hadn’t frozen up, the Monstrous Nightmare would be like all of the other dragons that he had encountered, dead. 

What was he so afraid of, anyways? He’s faced and killed several Monstrous Nightmares in the past, what made him hesitate last night? 

It was no used thinking about it, it was also useless to try and fall back asleep. Knowing that he would only wake up again, he heaved himself off the bed and made his way outside of the house. 

Once outside Stoick scanned the area, he could see a few people were up, judging from their silhouettes, some were fixing the exterior buildings that was damaged from last night and others were setting up a spiked barricade.. 

Stoick inhaled deeply, taking in the Berkian air, which smelled of Pine Trees and ocean water. He stretched out, testing the limits of his body and was pleased to find that he still felt limber, sore, but limber. 

Satisfied, Stoick made his way to the healers hut before he had to report in to Captain Larson. He had to make sure Gobber was alright, he couldn’t find the opportunity because of what happened, he felt so caught up in the moment that he ignored his friends well-being. But today was different, he needed to make things right again. The first thing on the list is to see how Gobber was doing.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Gobber didn’t know what felt worse, the incredible heat that his amputated arm was giving off or the fact that he was going to live out the rest of his days without an arm. I mean sure he wasn’t the first one to lose a limb and definitively won’t be the last, but he needed that arm, without it he won’t be able to hold a weapon and re-learning how to wield a weapon would take time. The dragons won’t wait for him, in fact if the dragons were smart, it would be in their best interest to attack him now. 

Gobber had drifted in and out of consciousness multiple times now and when he woke up he made a guesstimate that he had been out for a few hours, not days, he could still smell the smoke from a burnt building outside of his room. 

Gobber’s attention had drifted from his missing arm to the commotion that was going on outside his room. The noise was a mixture of yelling, whisper yelling and followed up by more yelling.

Gobber looked around the room that he was in, not taking any chances with the possibility of another attack he desperately searched the room to arm himself, he knew that being in the healers hut the chances of finding a weapon were non-existent, but he had to try. 

When the door to his room finally swung open, Gobber was caught fumbling a flower pot as a means to defend himself from the unknown assailant. However, holding something with your off hand felt foreign to him and he was seen awkwardly grasping the object by the stem.

Stoick would find the whole scene comically, if it weren’t his fault for Gobber’s dire situation.

“Gobber, you’re back, the healer said it you wouldn’t wake up for another 24 hours.”

Realizing that he wasn’t in imminent danger Gobber let the flower pot drop to the floor and breathe in a sigh of relief. 

“Well..You know…most of me” 

Stoick flinched visibly at his statement, he knew that he had to make things right by him. Stoick didn’t know how, but by Odin he was going to make things right.

“Gobber look about what happened last ni-.”

Gobber raised his left hand to stop him from saying anything more.

“You don’t have to say anything, it was my choices that got me into this mess. Stoick opened his mouth to say something, but Gobber glared at his friend to keep his mouth shut. “And you did what you had to do, whether it was the right decision or wrong decision, we’re vikings after all there’s no need to feel bad.

“Oh, Stoick should feel bad alright.” 

Their conversation was interrupted by Brynhild who decided to stay and look after Gobber despite the Healer telling her to go home and rest.

“Brynhild…” Gobber said to her warning her not to go any further.

“No, Gobber you listen here, you were a damn fine warrior and blacksmith up until you lost your arm. Without your hand you’re pretty much useless, all thanks to Stoick, who couldn’t help himself, but to prove himself to the Chief. 

Stoick rubbed his forehead, agreeing with her silently, Stoick knows better than anyone that it was his fault for getting Gobber into this mess. There was nothing he could do to get back Gobber’s arm.

Stoick didn’t want another yelling contest with Brynhild, she was the second most stubborn viking next to him and it would take Gobber to calm his two friends down whenever they would be at odds with each other. 

“I can tell when I’m not wanted,” Stoick said to Brynhild. “I have places to go to anyways, I’ll see you later Gobber.” With that Stoick saw himself out.

0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o

“Son of a troll,” Valka cursed inwardly berating herself as she dashed across the green forest to her village.

It had been hours until she finally woke up from collapsing in the forest after she had released the Nightfury back into the wild to cause more unspeakable terror on some unsuspecting viking. 

When Valka finally woke up, the sun was beginning to set and she knew that she was late to meet with the new recruit.

She smiled when she saw the roof of the outpost come into view. She slowed her pace down to a half run, half walk. She stopped in front of the door to take a minute to collect herself. 

She breathed in deeply and opened the door to find Gustav and presumably the recruit’s back towards her. Gustav noticed Valka first and flagged her down with a wave of his hand.

“Ah, look who managed to show up, I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten.” Gustav said to Valka, arms crossed and a disappointed scowl adorning his features.

When Valka remained silent, not explaining where she had been for the past 2 hours, Gustav glared at her, but she pretended not to see it. 

*Ahem* “Right, Valka I would like to introduce to you, the new recruit, Stoick Hofferson Haddock.”

Stoick turned around to take in his supposed senior of the Auxiliary, noticing no one in his sights, he looked to Captain Larson questioningly.

“Uh…down here.” 

Stoick faced the disembodied voice, trying to pinpoint where it had come from, when a mysterious hand floated in his eyes he looked toward the ground and spotted a girl with autumn brown hair and the greenest eyes he’s ever saw.

“Stoick, I would like for you to meet Valka Horrendous, your senior, she will be the one guiding you through the Auxiliary’s routines and practices.” Gustav told him.

Stoick was speechless and slightly annoyed at the situation that he was in, realizing just now the gravity of the situation that he was in.

Stoick closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, praying to all the gods and goddesses that he knew to give him strength and patience to carry on in the following days to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, there it is chapter 2, I might go back and edit it whenever I have any free time, but for now this'll have to do.


	3. Well, This was Stupid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valka investigates further on the dragon and it's rider, while Stoick is still having a hard time coming to terms with his punishment

Chapter 3: Well, This was Stupid…

*Gasp*

“Oh, wow, everything hurts.” 

That could’ve been way worse, if it wasn’t for all of his flight gear and for Toothless breaking his fall he wouldn’t have walk away with a few scratches and bruises, he would’ve been dead most like.

“Toothless!” the man gasped at his injured companion, putting his head against the reptiles chest he checked to see if he was still breathing. 

“No, no, no, Toothless can’t be dead, he just can’t!” Without toothless he’d be…

His thoughts was interrupted by the sudden rising and falling of Toothless’s chest, the man gave a huge sigh of relief. “He’s not dead, just unconscious.” The man shouldn’t be surprised Toothless has endured far worse.

After the masked man realized that toothless wasn’t in any danger he began scanning the trees and the bushes seeking another unknown enemy that may have spotted them. Deeming it safe, the man unlatched a buckle behind his headgear and mask that was fastened to his face. 

He walked to the waters edge, and flinched seeing his reflection on the water. There were heavy bags under his eyes, after long days and nights fighting and flying. Attacking strategic points in the enemy lines, when and where to counter attack, keeping his enemies at bay was a lot of work, but if he didn’t do it who would?

It was years ago when he decided to wage war on Drago Bludvist and his men. After Hiccup’s exile he was determined more than ever to make people see his side of the story and what better way to do that then to show it to them. 

Hiccup showed Drago that Dragons aren’t monsters, not all of them anyways, but they could be companions as well. 

For a time Drago did see eye to eye with Hiccup, but as all humans are capable of doing, they betray. Which led to the battle of dominance, of who would lead the dragons. 

Hiccup shook his head at the memory and dunked his head into the water, causing ripples. He stayed under until he came up gasping for air.

*Groan*

Hiccup turned to Toothless, twice, twice in one day that he and Toothless fell out of the sky, except this time they were prepared for it. The moment they had escaped from the trap set by the small viking girl they took flight, prepared to leave the Berk behind them, but when Hiccup felt off balance was the moment Toothless spiraled out of control, but in the split second they were falling Toothless caught Hiccup before they landed on the solid earth.

Hiccup approached Toothless, knowing that his savior was tougher than him it also didn’t stop him from being worried for him, they were partners after all. However, Hiccup stopped dead in his tracks looking puzzled than he ever was. Was Toothless’s tail always like that? His self-imposed question left him reeling in thought looking back at what his companion looked like. 

“Wasn’t Toothless’s tail more symmetrical?”

After a few more seconds of internal debating, yes, to be aerodynamic, the distribution of weight has to be equal, therefore symmetrical. If the distribution of weight are not equal then one side would be heavier than the other making them tip to one side and would have to compensate for the missing mass. The realization hit him harder than their landing and his face contorted to one of horror. 

“It must’ve been when Toothless fell down the first time when we were caught in the net and if he lost it then that would explain why we crashed a second time…” With Toothless’s tail missing they were stuck here in Berk. 

“Oh…”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo

It was late in the evening when Stoick decided to go home, it had been a long and eventful day for him. Usually the days were simple and easy, he would wake up, eat a hearty meal, train to be the best viking his mom could be proud of, then finally turn in for the day. Now he would have to report to in to Gustav who would give them the task for today and then do those tasks with Valka. 

He had mixed feelings about his senior in charge of taking care of him, on one hand she seemed easy to deal with and appeal to when getting his way, but he seemed conflicted on taking orders from someone who was younger and smaller than him. 

Stoick was broken from his musing when he noticed that the hearth in the center of his home was lit, what surprised him even more was the his mother was there as well stoking the fire.

“Mom, you’re home early” Stoick joked.

Astrid ignored his statement, aware of the fact that it was closing to midnight. Ever since Astrid took over as Chief she had been staying out more and spending less time at home, Stoick could remember a time when his father would come home every night just in time for dinner, but that was a lifetime ago. 

“Stoick, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Judging by the tone of her voice whatever that she was going to say next would not go well for him. 

“I’m leaving for the council of chiefs, tonight” Astrid said.

Stoicks heart sank, if he was going to persuade his mom to get him out of the auxiliary unit he would have to bump up his plan now.

“Y-you can’t! I need you here so that I can prove myself! You have to be here when that happens and then you can have me put back on the defense unit with Gobber.

Astrid’s eyebrow had twitch without her consent, she hadn’t expected his resistance. In fact when she became Chieftess, Stoick was the only one to have questioned her orders. 

“I wasn’t asking, I’m telling you.”

This wasn’t working Stoick thought, if he was going to convince his mother to change her mind he would have to approach it a different way. “Mom, Gustav already has a surplus of vikings in the auxiliary department I should be in the dragon slaying unit, we could use more of those. I mean, since Gobber is out of commission shouldn’t we be making it up in numbers? That’s where I come in.” 

Astrid looked over to her son, thinking of words to say that wouldn’t be taken the wrong way, but would be definitely be taken the wrong way. “We’ve been over this, Gobber is in that state because of you.” 

Stoick’s lips went dry, but he wouldn’t back down like last time. “Rephrase, I have to get back out there, the village needs me, what if it were attack by another dragon raid?”

Astrid rubber her eyelids and sighed, obviously exhausted, “Then the others will take care of it, its not like they need you to fight their battles for them.” The possibility of another attack was always present, Astrid thought, it would be a good idea to put him were he belongs, but he wouldn’t learn his lesson will he? 

“Everyone has their part to play, Stoick and you have yours, you should give everyone a chance to prove themselves.” Astrid continued.

Stoick fell silent once again, Astrid took it as a sign that she made her point across. And not a minute too soon, she had to be leaving soon and she couldn’t let this conversation drag on any longer. 

She went to gather her personal things that she needed on her journey ahead, in short she had meant for this to be a quick visit, grab her axe, tell Stoick where she was going. In and out, easy. The barrage of demands were unexpected, though she should have expected something like this from him.

“I’ll be back…probably,” Astrid had thrown in the last part jokingly, but it came out more of a foreboding premonition. 

“And I’ll be here…maybe,” Stoick returned. 

0o0o0o0ooo0

“Stoick! Are you even listening to me?” 

This was the third time Gustav raised his voice to Stoick and it was still morning Valka thought. Being in the Auxiliary meant that you had extra responsibilities than most vikings. You had to take of repairs on weapons and buildings. Not to mention do supply runs for the village when the need arises. And on rare occasions report for combat duty when they were undermanned or overwhelmed, like what had happened the other night. 

The Chief and her assigned bodyguards, Ruffnut and Heather, had left last night to fulfill the council summons leaving Fishlegs in charge of overlooking the rebuilding of Berk, fortifying the defenses and taking stock of food. Fishlegs decided to leave the reconstruction to Gustav’s team, while he dealt with the other tasks. 

However, they had been rebuilding and re-rebuilding the same house for twenty-five minutes after Stoick had messed up over and over again and now the project was at a standstill.

Stoick had a lot of thoughts running through his mind, his mother, his punishment, why on Odin’s green earth was it so hard to stick a piece of metal in between two pieces of wood!

Stoick pulled the ruined plank from the building and tossed it down to the rest of the pile of ruined wood below, Stoick reached for another plank, but when his hand produced nothing he discovered that he wasted all of the wood trying to fix the one spot on the roof.

Gustav ran his hand over his face, Stoick was an amazing warrior Gustav won’t deny that, he had initially thought it would be easy to reign in a boy like Stoick, just take the bull by the horns, but apparently his aptitude with an axe doesn’t correlate to his willingness to follow orders or the simplest task. 

“Valka, take Stoick with you and gather some more wood.”

Valka got up from working with Sven and waited for Stoick to get off the roof, so that they can begin doing their chore.

Stoick got down from where he was sitting on the roof to join Valka and walked away from her to what he assumed was the forest to gather wood, not caring whether or not she was following him or not.

“S-so, I guess we’ll just divide the work among ourselves?”

Stoick rolled his eyes, just generally annoyed at the younger viking. This shouldn’t be happening I should be out there with Gobber, Brynhild, I’d even put up with stupid Spitelout if it means I get to be with them.

“I don’t need someone like you! I don’t want anything to do with you! It’s not hard to gather wood, you can do it yourself!” Stoick nearly screamed.

With that Valka took it as her cue to leave, running in the other direction.

“Crap, I may have said too much…”

Just then a shadow of a person loomed overhead, prompting Stoick to turn around to find the source of the darkness.

“Hello Stoick” 

It took him a while to realize who it was because the sun was behind the figure, but when his eyes adjusted he let out a breath of relief, finally finding someone who knows him best. 

“Alvin” 

0o0o0o0o0o

“Who does he think he is?” Valka said nearly on the brink of tears while she stormed off into the woods.”

“Its not like I wanted this anyways, I’ve better things to do than babysit a spoiled kid like Stoick.”

“And for his information, planks of wood don’t just fall out of the sky, it has to be processed by lumberjacks and then Merchant Johannes would deliver it to us in 3-5 days. Usually, we’d process our own wood, but we’re already stretched out as it is…”

Lost in her own thoughts Valka was suddenly found herself on the ground as had she tripped over her own feet, no, it felt that rather something had tripped her. When she looked down to see what it was she was surprised to find the bola net was what tripped her. After sprinting back to the village the other day she forgot to bring it back, but looking at it brought back the events that had happened. 

“I survived an encounter with a Nightfury, the thought hadn’t felt comforting, in fact it had puzzled her. The dragon had every opportunity to kill her, yet it didn’t. In dragon training she was taught that all dragons always, always goes for the kill.

“So, why didn’t you?” Valka said to herself.

Whatever force that compelled her, she found herself curious as to where the Nightfury had fled off to. Walking in the same direction, Valka found her heart pounding, every known senses in her body telling her to turn back, however, a small part of her mind kept telling her to keep moving forward, to feed that morbid curiosity.

Before she knew it she found herself at the entrance of a clearing, from it she could see a sizable lake that took up most of the area and a couple of trees surrounding it. While the discovery of a new place to hideout was cool, Valka couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed.

“Well this was stupid…”

Of course there’s nothing here, this is a dragon we’re talking about, of course it can fly! A dragon that can’t fly is like saying that it can’t breathe fire, basically its screwed. 

Her eyes spotted a smooth black pebble at her feet and she bent down to investigate the stone. Once it was in her hands she could already tell it felt unnatural to hold and…warm?

She looked to see where it had fallen from, however her answer presented itself by a screeching noise that came from a moving shadow. 

Valka gave a small yelp of surprise and fell backward. Once again she found that her heart and stomach decided to switch places, but she pushed through it and got back up on her hands and knees to take another quick glimpse of the dragon. 

As she got closer to the edge of her hiding place Valka began to hear a voice, belonging to a male she decided, although it was at a higher pitch than most and more nasally.

“Could you stop that? I’m trying to think of a something, but you’re just- ” 

Valka couldn’t make out anything the person was saying, she also couldn’t pinpoint where the voice was coming from. She lifted her head to get a better angle of her environment. She could make out the figure of a man, the same man that she recognize as the one riding the Nightfury. 

His helmet that had masked his face was taken off his head, Valka took this as an opportunity to take in the mysterious man. He had a muss of auburn hair and stood roughly around 6’3”. 

His back was turn toward her, which prevented her from discerning his clothing and also his face. However, she had seen enough for one day and decided to call it quits, as she got up to run back to her village the small black pebble had fallen from her hands and fell to the ground below. 

Valka let in an involuntary gasp of air as she quickly tried to grab the stone but failed miserably going nowhere close to it, instead falling back down to the ground below her, her arm dangling from the ledge at an attempt to grasp the fallen stone.

“No!”

The sudden noise didn’t go unnoticed by the man, who grabbed his mask and swiftly put it on before turning around. What was worse it didn’t go unnoticed by his dragon, who had trained its eyes on her.

Valka for the second time had found herself in a staring contest with them both. After what felt like a lifetime it was the man who made the first move. He had taken a step toward her with his arm raised in self-defense or offense, Valka didn’t know, but she the next thing that she knew was to leave and without a second thought she got up and ran in the opposite direction. 

It had been a couple of minutes of blindly following the path, coming out the way she came in and stumbling over her feet, ever since Valka’s encounter with the dragon rider. 

“Oh gods, Oh gods, its going to eat me, Thor almighty its going to eat me!” Valka kept repeating the phrase in her mind, waiting for the warm claws of a dragon to kill her. When it didn’t she turned around to see if it was chasing her instead, but she didn’t see where she was going and found herself sitting on her ass once again. 

*Smack*

“Ouch, hey, watch were you’re going!” 

But that was as far as she got as she came face to face to the one she literally ran into. Gobber was on his way out of the healers hut, when he ran into the small viking girl. 

“G-Gobber, H-Hi, Hey, umm.. Hi, Gobber, Hi, Gobber” ugh, shut up you idiot! Be cool. 

*inhale*

*exhale*

“What are you doing here?” Valka finally said. 

Gobber dusted himself off after he recovered from the fall, who was this girl again? He swore that he’s seen her before. Just didn’t know where.. Valka! Valka was her name, he’s seen her in the healers hut sometimes after she’s made a mess of herself in dragon training and most of the time she’s seen her in the outpost when he made deliveries there, but other than that, this girl was a mystery. 

“Well, Valka, if you must know I escaped the good healer’s care, she insisted that I take the day off and rest in. She can be a real handful, if she doesn’t get her way ya know.” Gobber said matter of factly.

He knows my name

“Why would she be angry with you? The only reason she would is if you were to do something that would hinder… your… health…”

Gobber could feel Valka’s eyes scan over him and he for the first time in a long time he felt conscious, because try as hard as he might there was no way that he could hide his disability. Valka’s eyes widen at the revelation of his arm’s fate, questions already bubbling to the surface of her mind all trying to come out at once. 

“Y-your hand… What happened to your hand?” Gods, why didn’t I notice it before? 

Prior to meeting Valka, Gobber had been ambushed by a plethora of people who had heard and/or witnessed his sacrifice, receiving attention and praise. It lasted until morning, so he didn’t get any sleep making him cranky and fed up with people. 

Well, I thought that since the dragons had such a wonderful time here in Berk I decided to give them a little parting gift, oh, but Loki be damn I seemed to have misplaced my souvenir, oh well, might as well give’em me arm, it’s not like I was using it or nothing.

He hated receiving their pity, he didn’t need it or his arm to make himself a good viking. He was about to let her have it when he noticed something else, had she been running? 

“Valka… Are you… okay? You seem out of it.” 

Valka had forgotten that she had been running away from a legendary dragon that was still here in Berk, literally yards away from the village. 

She swiftly ran her arm through her face to wipe away any sweat. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just.. had a…umm, a disagreement with Stoick, but we’re okay now.” 

Before Gobber could investigate a bit more, he heard someone scream his name.

“Gobber get your butt back here!” 

Gobber turned his head in the direction of where the noise came from, immediately spotting Bryhild.

With nothing much to say Gobber ran to the village center, but not before giving a parting smile to Valka.

0o0o0o0o00o0

“And that’s what happened,” Stoick had told Alvin what happened the past couple of days when he was absent.

It had been Alvin’s turn to be stationed at the watch tower that was located away from the village center, so he had missed all that had transpired, in fact he was the first one to spot the incoming dragons and signal the village to prepare for battle before they came.

In the duration that they had talk, Alvin and Stoick had strayed away from Gustav and had found themselves on the steps of leading to the mead hall to continue their talk.

“Damn, Stoick, had I known that would a happened I’d have fought tooth and nail to get to where you were.”

Stoick smiled at the sentiment. 

Alvin was about Stoick’s height and size, if it weren’t for the differing hair color you could almost say that they were twins. Alvin had lost his parents when he was younger during the great dragon war and ever since then he has a never ending hatred for their kind.

“Well, well, well, look who we have here.” A voice had spoken up, full of bravado.

Stoick didn’t need to look who it was and expressed his displeasure by emitting a loud groan. It was loud enough for Spitlout to hear, but chose to ignore it. 

“Shouldn’t Gustav be babysitting you?”

Spitelout and his brothers lived in house Jorgenson, their father, Snotlout Jorgenson fought alongside Hiccup Haddock, his battles were legendary. Especially in the Thawfest games, were he dominated every single game, no one could compare to him. Living in his father shadow had put a lot of pressure on Spitelout and being the eldest, he had to prove his worth, even though his father told him that it didn’t matter. Spitelout saw it as a challenge though.

“Hey, I deserve to be here as much as you do, I saved your life and this village countless times.”

“The only thing that you did was embarrass yourself in front of the whole village to see”

Stoick had heard enough he stood up abruptly confronting Spitelout, who reflexively took a step back, smacking his back to Hedgelout. 

“I’m twice the warrior you are Spitelout and anyone who says otherwise has to answer to me.”

In spite of Stoick’s imposing presence, Spitlout willed himself to look up and meet Stoick’s eyes.

“You must be so sure of yourself, Stoick then you must be ready for the naming ceremony right?”

The naming ceremony is an event in Berk that awards young boys and girls an honorary title, such as Hiccup the fire conqueror, the fearless Astrid Hofferson, Oswald the agreeable and Dagur the Deranged. The name you were given would reflect your own personality, some vikings have yet to receive their title or just didn’t care, but for Stoick, other than training to fight dragons, this was the second most important part of a growing vikings life. 

Stoick was taken aback, how could he forget about that? He would be wouldn’t be given a title at this rate if he were to stay in auxiliary. 

“How does Stoick the screw-up?” Spitelout smirked .”

Stoick was about to punch his face in when his arm was held back by Alvin who stepped in front of him shielding his view.

Spitelout turned his attention to Alvin who, if looks could kill he'd be dead ten times over, but as he was with his brothers, he had felt the need to stand up to him. "What? You got something to say to me? Spitelout was perturbed by Alvin's silent stare that seemed to drill holes into his being and after a few moments Alvin gave a seemingly disarming smile and spoke up. 

“Okay, I think we’re all just tired and tense from the dragons, how’s about we go into the mead hall to get some grub?”

Spitelout thankfully backed down and returned to his two brothers, who were looking at each other to see if they should have intervened and stopped their brother from saying too much. 

As soon as they were out of ear shot Alvin turned around to face Stoick, who had calmed down from his rage and was looking rather shameful. 

I almost gave into my emotions again, Stoick thought. He could already hear his mom scolding him for not using his head as often as he should.

“Alvin, I’m s-”

Stoick was going to apologize but was stopped once again by Avin putting his arms up in front of him.

“It’s fine Stoick, those guys were jerks anyways, but seriously use your head a little more, we’ve got to stick together, it won’t do us any good if we were to be divided as it is.” 

Stoick didn’t have anything to say to that, of course it was true, but it still hadn’t excused him for what he was about to do. 

Sensing his friends internal conflict Alvin dropped his serious expression and replaced it with a broad grin. 

“Hey, I wasn’t joking around when I said we’d go to the meadhall, lets go I’m starving.”

0o0o00o0o0o

Berk at night was a sight to behold when it wasn’t burnt to a crisp in dragon fire which it was right now. During this time vikings like to drink in the meadhall, tell stories around the warm heat of the fire, sing songs and the ever popular sneaking, when no one was around. 

Making use of the the alleyways of Berk the hooded man darts around until he reached his destination. The Kill Ring, it used to house the deadliest of matches between viking and dragons to prove their worthiness to be one of them, then it was converted into a training ground for dragon slaying trainees, until finally when dragon attacks became too much it was converted into another base of operations and emergency supply storage. However, one thing still remained in spite of all the changes that were made. The dragons that were being used to train vikings were still there, held in captivity and he would be the one to set them free. 

Dodging and weaving passed the armed patrol was a breeze, he had taken advantage of the fact that everyone would gather at the meadhall and now would be the perfect time to set his plan into motion. 

Hiccup knew that if he ever came back to Berk alive, he would be the one to release the dragons. After what he had seen out there it was the only logical thing to do, it would nag at his conscience otherwise, haunt him in his dreams. 

Arriving in the killring, there were a lot of maps, battle plans that were knocked off the tables and they now littered the floor, crates upon crates of weapons, foods and oils took up space in the the sides of the killring. What was used to be an empty arena was crowded with such items. 

Hiccup approached the left-most cage door in the ring and pulled at the bolts and levers that were holding at the cage door and when it opened it revealed a Gronkle rousing from its slumber to see why its cage had been opened. 

At the sight of Hiccup the Gronkle became aggressive, but all Hiccup had to do was put his unarmed hands up to appease the dragon and after a quick sniffs, warmed up to Hiccup instantly. Hiccup did this for the rest of the cages, until he got to the final one holding the Deadly Nadder, to which he stopped dead in his tracks. Something was wrong, he knew it from experience. All those times in combat made Hiccup develop a keen sense of awareness that had saved him and countless others from disaster or from an enemy ambush. 

He had sensed he wasn’t alone when his hand gripped the final release lever, he turned around to see a man and woman come out from the shadows and was quickly surprised who he saw.

“Astrid!” Hiccup instinctively went to his sword but not unsheathing it “What are you doing here?” 

His heart was pounding furiously against his chest, but he stood his ground and resisted the urge to stutter. 

Astrid’s face was looking like a mix of horror, disbelief and disappointment all rolled up into one, stepping closer to Hiccup and the released dragons with her hands up to show that she wasn’t a threat. 

“I could ask you the same thing Hiccup.” 

The person next to her, Hiccup realized was Fishlegs who wore a similar expression as Astrid, except more fearful of him than Astrid.

“Astrid I can explain the dragons they-”

Shaking her head, Astrid’s expression changed entirely, whatever uncertainty she may have was gone and was replaced by rising anger. 

“Hiccup don’t…Not one word about dragons, not now when we’re so close to finishing this. How can you even think about doing this when we can end the suffering, when YOU can end the cycle! How can you not understand that? ”

Hiccup could feel his own anger rising, but resisted giving into his emotions, there was still work to do and if he loses sight of it, he’s already lost the fight. Astrid was right, Hiccup knew and it was taking every shred of his being not to slay the enemy next to him. What stopped him and his ingrained Viking mentality was his instincts. Something was whispering into him that dragons were not the enemy and that small shadow of doubt was enough for him. 

“I don’t understand? No, Astrid its you who doesn’t understand, can’t you see that not all dragons are the same? If you’d stop and look at them, like actually look at them you would see that we’re not so different from them, which is why I have to do this.” 

Hiccup once again gripped the final release lever for the Deadly Nadder, if he could somehow get all of the dragons that he’s released into the sky and take flight he’s already won, but to do that he has to get past his wife, “I might as well be talking to a sturdy wall, a sturdy beautiful wall” Hiccup corrected.

“Call the others.”

Astrid said to Fishlegs while unsheathing her double sided axe, readying it to face off with her husband. 

Fishlegs was still staring at Hiccup and Astrid astonished at what he had just heard and witnessed. “Now Fishlegs!” That seemed to snap him out of it and quickly got moving to call anyone who might still be awake.

“Astrid you can’t win against me you know that.”

She hated to admit it, but it was true it had been a long time since they were kids that Hiccup ever needed protecting. In most cases, Astrid often found herself being saved by him and with 3 dragons seemingly aiding him and one more about to come out, she was at a disadvantage. However, she didn’t need to defeat him, all she had to do was stall him long enough for Fishlegs to get back to her with reinforcements.

Astrid was startled out of her thoughts by moving gears, Hiccup had opened the final gate revealing a pissed looking Nadderhead. Hiccup then pulled his sword off his belt and pressed a button on its hilt extending the blade and lighting it on fire. 

At that moment Astrid couldn’t recognize him, “who was this man standing before her?” There wasn’t a trace of her Hiccup anywhere on this man. Instead what took his place was a chief, she was in the presence of the fire conqueror. 

“You won’t hurt me, would you Hiccup?” Astrid said, her voice shaking slightly along with her hands from the dire situation.

“No, I won’t, but they will,” At that, Hiccup raised his emblazoned sword toward her signaling all four dragons to stalk closer to her and with each step they took, Astrid took a step backward. 

The dragons took to the sides of the cage, to try and get behind the viking, it wouldn’t be long now until Astrid would run out of space and have 4 dragons start attacking her.

Astrid’s heart was beating a hundred miles a minute now, angry and hurt that Hiccup would actually sic dragons on her. Despite her internal conflict of fight or flight, all was going according to plan. In a split second decision Astrid decided that she needed Hiccup closer to her, just enough space in between them to land a killing blow. However, Hiccup being, Hiccup he was always perceptive of her and would eventually catch on to her plans if she didn’t do something, so Astrid had to distract him.

“You were right, Hiccup..About everything.” 

It had taken nerves of steel to do what she had done and not turn tail and run full speed into the village, but that would also put her at a disadvantage as well. Exposing her backside to four dragons was like a fleeing prey and fight all four dragons at once was suicide, but appealing to Hiccup’s sense of duty seemed like the best way to go and judging by his confused expression, it was all that she needed to continue on.

“What are you talking about?” Hiccup didn’t stop his approach on Astrid, but what she said unnerved him. Did she have change of heart? Had he gotten through to her? And if he did why was he still tense? Something didn’t add up. 

“If we learn about the enemy, about dragons we would have found a weakness, right? 

Astrid’s revelation disappointed Hiccup more so than anything. “Astrid… they’re not animals, that are to be cut opened and studied on, they’re like people… like me.” 

“They’re nothing like you, Hiccup you’re better than them better than all of us. You’re a father, a fighter, a chief. What would we do without you? ”

Hiccup said nothing pondering on what Astrid had said. Once again she was right, helping the dragons was counter productive to their cause. 

“Astrid, you’re taking things way too far, have a bit of compassion. You’d trade your humanity for a way to eradicate the enemy? It’s not worth it, stepping over the line doesn’t justify the means if we give ourselves to the rage we’d be no better than animals.” 

Astrid could now see the dragons flanking her making her space a bit crowded than what she was comfortable with, but it was enough to launch her attack. 

“No, Hiccup it’s you who has overstepped his boundaries.” Wondering what she had meant, Hiccup was once again confused, but was shocked to find how close he had gotten to the female viking. Astrid had leaped forward, axe over her shoulder and coming to slash at Hiccup’s hand carrying the sword to disable him. 

Hiccup realized what she was doing and brought Inferno to meet Astrid’s attack. The dragons wanting to come to help, turned toward the two, teeth bared and ready to pounce on her. Instinctively, Hiccup raised his had to stop them and to his shock they had listened to him, backing away from her to watch instead. 

Pushing Astrid off from his sword took insurmountable strength, but when he did, he began his counter attack. Because of Inferno’s unique ability of setting itself on fire, he planned to make use of it to the fullest. Bringing the sword as high and as fast as he could he brought it down, but knowing Astrid she would block it and when she did so sparks and flames started flying off of Hiccup’s weapon and blinded her momentarily and she faltered backward. 

Hiccup took this opportunity to knock Astrid off her feet. “NOW! Go! Run to the exit!” Hiccup pointed to the open gate, the dragons seemed to understand him and dashed out of the exit. Not before the Deadly Nadder could run though, it grabbed Hiccup by the collar and put him on top of it, so that he mounted the dragon. 

“He’s riding it? He’s riding on a dragon?!” Astrid felt anger and something else she couldn’t explain, but it hurt. He’s been in league with them all along she thought. She had to stop him before he does something he’s going to regret. Filled with renewed determination, Astrid picked herself up and followed after Hiccup, which wasn’t very far seeing that he had fallen off the dragon, but the scene before her was horrifying nonetheless.

Hiccup had been chained up and made to kneel on the ground, the vikings saw Astrid approach and had called out to her yelling at her to deal him a punishment. 

“Kill ‘im! Kill the treacherous bastard! We saw what he did, Astrid! He has brought shame to all of Berk.” 

Astrid looked to them, she recognized all of them, people who had loved her and Hiccup were now asking for his death. She didn’t see Fishlegs, prior to this Heather, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and even Snotlout were out there on other errands and not on Berk. She was utterly alone, the masses, she realized had been drinking making them more afraid and after facing off with Hiccup she was afraid too. 

“Astrid, please I have my reasons, you have to believe me,” Hiccup begged her.

Seemingly on autopilot, Astrid walked toward Hiccup, axe still in her hands.

“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

“Astrid, no…wait..” Tears was falling off of Hiccup’s face now. Astrid didn’t answer him, raising her axe above her head. 

“Astrid….please…”

Astrid’s face reflected Hiccup’s teary one, unwilling to carry out her duty, but at the same time sworn to see it through. She brought her axe down.

“ASTRID!” 

O0o0o0o0o0o0o

“Astrid! Astrid! Wake up!”

Ruffnut’s voice cut through the morning air, it had the makings of a fine morning, but Ruffnut heard Astrid called out to Hiccup in her sleep and she realized that she was having one of her nightmares. 

After shaking her awake, Astrid seemed confuse as to where and when she was. But after a brief moment she got her bearings and brought her knees up to her chest. “What happened?” 

Heather was rousing from her sleep, awoken by the sudden noise. She had made her way to her two friends. 

“You were having a nightmare about Hiccup again.” Ruffnut’s voice was laced with concern for her friend. They had all taken the death of Hiccup pretty hard, especially Snotlout, which came as a surprised as when they were younger the both of them hadn’t seen eye to eye and had bickered a lot, but as time went on, Snotlout grew up a little and worked together with him. 

When Astrid said nothing, Ruffnut nudged Heather to say something to the girl, to try and console her, “Listen, Astrid… It wasn’t your fault that Hiccup died they way he did. But you didn’t have much of a choice did you? Exiling him was the merciful thing to do.

No answer from Astrid again, Ruffnut and Heather looked to each other not knowing what to do or what to say next. Sighing, Ruffnut stood up and walked to the door, “Nothing we can do about it, except leave her alone for now.” Heather got her message and stood up to join Rufffnut, but not before patting Astrid’s hand in reassurance, “You didn’t kill him.” 

When Astrid heard the door close she lifted her head up and saw the black space that surrounded her. Everything was dark except for the light underneath the door, she thought back to what Heather had said, “You didn’t kill him.” 

“No, but I might as well have.”


	4. Right Where You Should Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small chapter on how Hiccup meets Valka (again) among other things...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Peeks around the corner*  
> H-hey, guys... Uhh, I'm alive! I know what you're thinking and I am so sorry for not updating as much as I should have. Life is kicking my ass as usual and anyone who is in College can testify to that. Anyways, here is a new chapter, unfortunately it's not as long as I would have liked, but it something? Again so sorry for not updating.  
> Happy Holidays!

Chapter 4: Right Where You Should Be

Fishlegs entered the destroyed library building cautiously and was surprised to see that the building hasn’t collapsed completely on the inside, just a few scattered books that have dislodged themselves out of their shelves and a couple of burnt loose planks on the ground.

The day was already over and they were no closer to finishing than they were starting. Fishlegs sighed to himself and brought it upon himself that he should put the books back to where they belong, it would at least give him some peace of mind that something was fixed at least. After some time doing this Fishlegs found himself thinking back to that early morning.

_  
“Do you have everything? Clothes, food, weapons? I even packed an extra pair of-”_

_Fishlegs, sweetie, I’m fine, we’ve brought everything we needed and besides we won’t be long anyways, its just a week…or two._

_Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Heather, Fishlegs and Snotlout were at the docks saying there farewells to each other because Odin forbid this could be the last time they see each other. What with Tuffnut and Snotlout going to dragons nest, who knows what they would find._

_“I know I’m just worried, but I know that you’ll come back to me, like you’ve always have.” Fishlegs admitted. Heather smiled at his devotion and she couldn’t help but hug him._

_Tuffnut made gagging noises which earned him a snort from Snotlout and a mean right hook from his twin sister._

_“Arg, you half-troll! I hope your face gets burned off by a Scaldron!”_

_“Uh-huh, I’ll be sure to watch myself then”, Ruffnut said to him casually._

_“Wha? Didn’t you hear me? I said I hope you die a horrible death!”_

_This time Ruffnut didn’t even look at her brother, “I love you too bro” and with that she walked toward the boat that they will be sailing in._

_Tuffnut looked confused and turned to Snotlout, “How does she keep doing that?”_

_Snotlout shrugged to his friend and looked at him knowingly, “Women, am I right?”  
After saying this he spotted Astrid walking toward the docks and took it as his cue to gather his troops and prepare to set sail as well to leave on their journey. _

_“Took you long enough, I take it Stoick gave you a bit more trouble than you had initially thought?” Ruffnut asked her, Fishlegs had noticed recently that she had been the only viking brave enough to talk to her casually, just like when they were younger. It was a good change of pace for Astrid, Fishlegs thought, it was better than being treated like glass anyways._

_Astrid placed her sack of belongings on the ship and returned to Fishlegs, “Do you have the thing that I asked for?”_

_Knowing what she meant, Fishlegs produced a sword hilt that was hanging from his belt and gave it to Astrid. “Do you remember how to use it?” Fishlegs asked her._

_Astrid gripped the familiar hilt, weighing it on her hand. It was a lot lighter than what she was used to, but then again she wielded a double-sided axe that was bigger than her head._

_“Of course I do, it has a double-click mechanism on both sides, on one side it releases Monstrous Nightmare gel that coats the sword, Astrid clicked the button and the hilt did as she said it would, setting the sword on fire, which garnered a lot of attention from other vikings who were passing by._

_“Another click retracts the sword into the hilt, the other side releases Zippleback gas.” But before she demonstrated it though, she opened a sliding door on the side of the hilt and released an empty container housing monstrous nightmare gel and replaced it with another container holding Zippleback gas. Once it was in place, she flipped the hilt so that the bottom was facing upward, clicked the button, which she released the gas at her feet, clicking the button again sparked the gas making it combust in a trail, like a spark following a fuse._

_The night which was noisy despite there being a lack of dragons was silent once again because of her use of Hiccup’s sword that he called “Inferno.”_  
  
It was strange to see it in action again, Fishlegs thought it was strange for them to keep on using his inventions despite Hiccup’s demise a decade ago.

Fishlegs was pulled out of his thoughts when his foot kicked a book across the stone floor of the library. Fishlegs quickly went to recover the book and place it were it belonged, until the cover of said book made him stop short of doing just that. 

O0o000o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

“Where did, Valka go wrong?”

It had been a long day for the citizens of Berk and they had retired to the mead-hall to receive their well deserved meal. Gustav was in the middle of explaining the do’s and don’ts of combat roles to his already weary team. How Gustav had the energy to talk their ears off, they had no idea. 

Valka rolled her eyes, knowing Gustav he probably meant it as a joke, but it came off rather critical in other people’s ears, but she didn’t mind and answered him anyways. 

“I brought the bola launcher when I wasn’t supposed to and I didn’t follow orders when I was supposed to.” 

Hearing this for the first time, Helga stopped eating and paused to look at Valka in astonishment, never before had she seen her friend act bravely. 

Knowing the all too familiar look on her friends face, Valka smiled to Helga and nodded to her, “I’ll tell you later.” 

Helga was about to say something, but the sound of doors opening interrupted her before she could. 

Stoick and Alvin had decided to make their appearance, they went over to the table where Gobber was sitting at, but thought better of it when they saw that he was sitting with Brynhild. Not looking for another verbal exchange with her, Stoick went and sat at another table leaving Alvin to sit with the others. 

The room had fallen silent. Ever since his demotion to the auxiliary unit, but that didn’t stop Gustav, “Where did Stoick go wrong?”

Spitelout spoke up first, “Uh, he showed up?” giggles could be heard from his two brothers after the comment. 

“He’s never where he should be.” A series of “ooooo’s” was followed 

“Thank you, Bryhild.” Gustav saw Fishlegs approach their table and decided it was his cue to give the stage to the larger viking. 

“Okay gang, I checked the library for the damages done and I’ve noticed that you haven’t gotten into the houses on the docks yet, how are we doing with the repairs?

Stoick averted his gaze away from the elder viking quickly, knowing why it was taking them so long to get started was all his fault. 

Gustav rubbed at his neck sheepishly, “We got… sidetracked, turns out it’s difficult to teach a beginner under these circumstances, looking over to, Stoick, he had bowed his head bashfully, not wanting to make eye contact with the elder viking. Gustav sighed at that and took a deep breath, grabbing Fishleg’s attention.

I’m requesting he be reinstated and be put back to the defense unit with Gobber and Bryhild.” 

Everyone, including Stoick looked to Gustav shocked at what he had said. Everyone had their part to play and if everyone isn’t capable of doing it, it would be counter productive and would put everyone in danger.

Fishlegs considered Gustav’s request, it was a smart choice and he would be a fool to not accept, but first and foremost it was Astrid who issued the punishment to Stoick, so if it was anyone’s decision it would be Astrid. 

Fishlegs fished for the Dragon manual, he couldn’t help himself and brought it along with him, and brought it out for all of them to see. “This is the dragon manual. It holds everything we know about every dragon we know of, each has it’s strengths, weaknesses and class type.” Fishlegs looked directly at Stoick “Just like you, you have your limitations and right now you are exactly where you should be.

Thunder began to rumble outside of the mead hall and everyone began to clear out, getting ready to go back home. Stoick was the last one to leave, it had already started pouring outside when he came back to his senses. Looks like it wasn’t going to be that easy.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0

This was a bad idea Hiccup thought to himself as he jumped from roof top to roof top in the dark, wet air that is Berk. Hiccup needed access to the forge to craft Toothless another tail so that they can get airborne again and continue on with their mission. But the task proved to be trickier than he thought it would. Hiccup made two wrong turns and was almost caught before he found his bearings and was currently making his way toward his destination. 

Hiccup couldn’t help the nauseous feeling emanating from his belly as he jumped from one building to the next. It reminded him of the event that happened years ago. Except instead of getting captured he would probably be executed on the spot without a second thought. This feeling helped Hiccup make decisions that would’ve costed him his life and he didn’t ignore the feeling whenever he felt it. But Hiccup decided it was a calculated risk he was taking in order to achieve his goal.

He let another guard pass by him and jumped down from the roof top and entered the empty forge. Fortunately, it was still lit, rather whoever was manning the forge had carelessly left it unattended and the fire was still roaring with life. Hiccup stayed close to the fire to regain his body heat before removing his helmet from his head and put it on a nearby stool. 

Hiccup looked around the forge a strange sensation overtook him and as his senses were filled with nostalgia he let his instincts guide him to tools and appliances he would need to start working.

He needed to hurry and create the parts he needed to create Toothless’s new tail prosthetic. He grabbed the apron knocking over a few boxes of paper and tools in the process and set to work grabbing everything he needed. 

It has been too long since he entered this place and sure he had a forge back were he came from, but he didn’t feel at home like he was here.

Returning from the storage room out back, Hiccup reentered the forge to start working, he figured the rain and the thunder will cover his loud hammering and he can work without anyone discovering him. 

That was until he felt an unfamiliar presence standing in the forge.

She was a skinny little thing, with brown hair and blue eyes, holding his helmet in her small, pale hands.

She had the same look that Hiccup was sporting on his face, one of surprise and horror combined. 

Hiccup really hated being right…

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure I captured Astrid's or Stoick's character and personalities yet, but I'm sure as I continue this series I'll figure it out.


End file.
